Comparative studies of Finno-Ugric languages have been extensive
over time. As to research into the features of communicative behaviour
among Finno-Ugric peoples, there have been few studies that focused on
the comparative aspect of the question (for example, Pajupuu 1995a,
1995b, 1997; Ryabina 2007). It has been ascertained that correlation
between language and communicative behaviour is considerably weaker than
that between culture and communication (Pajupuu 1995a, 1995b; Wierzbicka
1998).

This article compares the communicative behaviour of Udmurts,
Estonians and Finns. Communicative behaviour is defined here as a set of
such norms and standards of discourse, or dialogue, as the length of a
turn, the duration of a pause and the strategy of taking turns. The
analysis reported in the article aimed at defining the location of
Udmurt culture in the continuum of high-and low-context cultures with
respect to the characteristics of dialogues and at comparing the results
with the findings of a study on the communicative behaviour of Finns and
Estonians.

1.1. The concept of low- and high-context cultures

E. T. Hall (1976) distinguishes between two categories of culture
with respect to the quantity of information conveyed by a message. In
some of the cultures information is explicit, it is largely verbalized.
These are defined by E. T. Hall as low-context cultures. In other
cultures, utterances cannot be understood solely on the basis of the
language-related signs. They can be adequately interpreted only if the
context is known. Such cultures are defined as high-context cultures
(Hall 1976:91).

The main purpose of low-context communication is to convey
information. The speaker is responsible for imparting the message
clearly so that the interlocutor could easily decode it (Ting-Toomey
1999:101, 209). Communication in high-context cultures is an emotional
involvement rather than a mere transfer of information (Pajupuu 1995a).
In high-context cultures it is the listener who is responsible for the
adequate interpretation of the message (Ting-Tomey 1999:101, 209); the
speaker imparts information not only verbally, but also using gestures,
intonation and even silence (Ting-Toomey 1999:100; Samovar and Porter
2004:76).

In individualistic low-context cultures private life is separated
from the other life spheres, thus the interlocutors do not know much
about each other and for communication they need detailed information
(Hall 1976, Hall and Hall 1990:6-7). In collectivistic high-context
cultures people are involved in close relationships with family members,
friends, colleagues; they have extensive information about the life of
people around them and therefore do not impart detailed information
(Hall 1976, Hall and Hall 1990:6-7).

1.2. Dialogues as a parameter in inter-cultural communication
studies

Many researchers of inter-cultural communication argue that
differences between low- and high-context cultures are displayed in
dialogues. In low-context cultures conversation is fast, without long
pauses, and the interlocutor is frequently interrupted (Hall, 1983:63;
Halmari 1993; Shigemitsu 2005). In high-context cultures (for example,
those of American Indians, Chinese and Japanese) dialogue consists of
long turns alternating with longer pauses and quiet listening;
interruptions are rare. The Japanese can have up to 5 seconds long and
American Indians of Navajos--up to 10 seconds long pauses (Clark 1998,
Shigemitsu 2005).

Y. Shigemitsu (2005) has studied the duration of pauses in
dialogues between Americans (low-context culture), Japanese
(high-context culture) and Chinese (high-context culture). The study has
shown that there were fewer pauses in the dialogue between the
Americans. In dialogues between the Japanese and the Americans pauses
were always interrupted by Americans and longer turns were also taken by
Americans, as the Japanese failed to take the turn amidst the highly
fluent speech of the Americans. The Japanese found it easier to
participate in a dialogue with the Chinese, since there are similarities
in the communicative behaviour of the Japanese and the Chinese--for
example, a similar attitude towards silence. In the American tradition
of communication pause is not acceptable in a dialogue, it is a
violation of the norm of discourse, while for the Japanese and the
Chinese pause is a norm and a means of communication. During a pause
interlocutors can be engaged in interpreting the message, preparing an
answer and a new theme (Shigemitsu 2005).

1.3. Communicative behaviour of Estonians and Finns

The analysis of literature shows that every culture has
characteristic features of communication. In this respect, it is
interesting to research the communicative behaviour of peoples from the
same language group. In this work, the communicative behaviour of
Estonians and Finns studied by comparing data from the analysis of radio
dialogues (Pajupuu 1995a, 1995b) will be treated. The analysis has shown
that Finns take twice longer turns as Estonians, pauses in the Finnish
dialogues are also longer. The Finns quietly listen to each other,
interruptions of the interlocutor are rare. The Estonians frequently
interrupt the interlocutor promptly taking turns. Besides, Estonian
speech is considerably faster than Finnish speech: Estonians utter 158
words per minute, Finns--114 words per minute. According to H. Pajupuu,
Finnish culture can be referred to the high-context category, while
Estonian culture--to the low-context category of cultures (Pajupuu
1995a, 1995b: 768-769).

Another study based on telephone calls between Finnish
(high-context culture) and American (low-context culture) businessmen
(Halmari 1993) also showed that Americans interrupted their Finnish
interlocutor three times more frequently than Finns did while speaking
with an American interlocutor. Finnish businessmen very rarely
interrupted their interlocutor; in the majority of cases they uttered
interjections to signal understanding and the interlocutors' last
words or even last syllables of words were uttered simultaneously. As to
the rate of speech the Americans spoke faster than the Finns.

Both Finland and Estonia are referred to individualistic countries
by G. Hofstede (2001:215, 502). According to W. B. Gudykunst and S.
Ting-Toomey (1988), in individualistic cultures low-context
communication is dominant. The question arises why communication in
Finnish culture tends to be high-context although Finland is an
individualistic country. The answer might be: it is an exception to the
rule. Finnish communicative behaviour compared to that of other
Europeans is specific (Koessegi et al. 2004); it has features of
communicative behaviour characteristic of the Asian communicative
type--for example, the attitude to silence (Lehtonen and Sajavaara
1985). J. Lehtonen and K. Sajavaara (1985) find that a typical Finn is a
silent listener; in Finnish culture it is considered impolite to
interrupt the interlocutor.

Estonian and Finnish cultures have a different background. Estonian
culture has been influenced by several cultures, including Danish,
Swedish, German, Russian. Estonia was also incorporated into the Soviet
Union. Finnish culture has mainly been influenced by Swedish culture,
although Finland was once also a Russian province. It can be suggested
that the Finno-Ugric type of culture has been preserved more in Finnish
than Estonian culture, because Finland has been less influenced by other
cultures.

1.4. The background of Udmurt culture

The communicative behaviour of Udmurts has been studied by E.
Ryabina (2007). It has to be mentioned that Udmurts are the native
people of the Udmurt Republic, which is part of the Russian Federation.
Udmurtia is in the Western part of the Urals, on the border between
Europe and Asia. This territory has long been a place where active
contacts between Finno-Ugric, Slavic and Turkic peoples evolved.

As it has been mentioned above, each nation has specific features
of communicative behaviour. The standards of communication are acquired
in the course of socialization, which starts in early childhood and
continues in the kindergarten, school, university, at working place. G.
Hofstede argues that if a state is not homogeneous (there are regional,
ethnic, religious differences), the process of socialization takes place
on several levels (Hofstede, 1991:4, 10). Socialization among Udmurts is
maintained both within the ethnic community and within the Russian
Federation. G. Hofstede (Hofstede, 2001:502) refers Russia to
collectivistic countries. Research on the communicative behaviour of
Russians has not been abundant. Turunen has mentioned that Russians are
talkative, they express their opinion and want to be listened to, they
like to impress others and demonstrate their capacity to cope with any
question. Russians tend to be dominant in a conversation; they take long
turns so that the interlocutor, especially one from a different culture,
can hardly utter a single word. As listeners, Russians are active--they
signal comprehension by uttering interjections, using mimics and
gestures (Turunen 2000).

1.5. Communicative behaviour of Udmurts: preliminary hypothesis

The hypothesis to be tested in our study was as follows. The Udmurt
culture is more high-context than Finnish individualistic culture, which
has had an impact of the Swedish individualistic low-context culture.
Udmurt culture has been influenced by Russian and Tatar collectivistic
cultures. There are also languagespecific features that could be
considered relevant for defining Udmurt culture as one having higher
contextuality than, for example, Finnish.

Firstly, it has been claimed that in high-context cultures a
difference is made between the 'insiders' and
'outsiders' (Hall 1976). In Udmurt, the first person plural
form is conveyed by two pronouns: mi and as'meos. Mi is used in
cases when the interlocutor is an 'outsider', and
as'meos--when the interlocutor is an 'insider'. For
example, a schoolboy talking with his mother refers to his mates and him
using the pronoun mi. In a talk with one of his mates he would use
as'meos.

Secondly, in high-context cultures the social status of a
person--age, sex, social position--are taken into consideration (Hall
1976; Gudykunst and Ting-Toomey 1988). In Udmurt there is an abundance
of kinship terminology. For example, words with the root tcuz are used
for naming the relatives of the mother: tcuzaj 'grandmother',
tcuzataj 'grandfather', tcuzmurt 'uncle', tcuzapaj
'aunt', while pesjanaj 'grandmother', pesjataj
'grandfather', agaj 'uncle', apaj 'aunt'
are used for the relatives of the father. An older relative's wife
is kenak, a younger one's--ken. An older relative's husband is
kyrs'i and a younger relative's husband is emespi. Elder
brother is called agaj, younger brother--vyn; elder sister--apaj,
younger sister--suzer. An older person is not called by name. Even
today, calling elder brothers and sisters by name in some families is
not customary.

Thirdly, in high-context cultures intonation is used to convey
information (Ting-Toomey 1999:100). In Udmurt the word tauna
'please' is used only in response to the interlocutor's
expression of gratitude, while polite request is conveyed by intonation.

Further, rural inhabitants do not greet a person by saying, for
example, 'Good morning/evening'; they would ask instead:
'Where are you going to?' This might sound impolite for people
from other cultures, but for Udmurts it is quite normal: small talk is
implicitly also a greeting. Thus, the context carries an implication.

2. Case study: communicative behaviour of Udmurts

In the study of the communicative behaviour of Udmurts excerpts
from 10 dialogues between prominent figures of the Udmurt community
(journalists, politicians, scientists, writers, etc) were analysed. The
dialogues were recorded in 2005 by the Mynam Udmurtie radio broadcasting programme Mi doryn kunoyn as direct transmission.

2. 1. Methods

The analysis focused on the duration of utterances and pauses as
well as on the strategy of turn taking in the aforementioned dialogues.
To measure the duration of turns, pauses and the interlocutors'
simultaneous speaking the computer programme Sound Forge 8.0 was used.

Symbols for the dialogue components were as follows (Pajupuu,
1995):

a--the turn of the leading interviewer without intra-turn double
speaking ((s)ab) and intra-turn pauses ((s)p),

b--the turn of the interviewee without intra-turn double-speaking
((s)ab) and intra-turn pauses ((s)p),

(s)ab--simultaneous speaking not leading to turn-switching
(intra-turn double speaking),

(l)ab--simultaneous speaking leading to a switching of turns
(turn-ending double speaking)

(s)p--pause not leading to turn-switching (intra-turn pause).

In the analysis, silence exceeding 200 ms was accepted as a pause
occurring in an utterance.

Note. Measurements were made only of pauses preceded by falling
intonation; a tone fall implies soliciting a turn switching. (l)p--pause
leading to a switching of turn (turn-switching pause).

Firstly, the duration of all the dialogue components were measured;
subsequently, the percent of the duration of a dialogue component in
relation to the duration of the whole dialogue, the average duration (in
seconds), standard deviation, and the number of occurrences of each
component were found. The measurement results are shown in Table 1.

In addition to the analysis of data on the components of dialogue,
average speech rate in the dialogues was measured. To do this, the
number of words uttered within the first minute of dialogue was counted.
The rate of speech in Udmurt dialogues was compared to that in Estonian
and Finnish dialogues.

For the comparison of Udmurt dialogues with Estonian and Finnish
dialogues the results of an analogous study of Estonian and Finnish
radio dialogues between prominent society members (Pajupuu 1995a) were
used. Mean durations of the components of Udmurt, Estonian and Finnish
dialogues are shown in Table 2.

Table 3 shows the ratio between mean durations of the components in
the Udmurt and in the Estonian and Finnish dialogues. Average durations
of the components in the Udmurt, Estonian and Finnish dialogues are
shown in Figure 1.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

3. Results

Table 1 shows the characteristics of components in the
Udmurt-Udmurt dialogues.

As seen from the table, the duration of the interviewer's
turns was 21.7 %, the duration of the interviewee's turns--75.2 %
of the total dialogue duration. The percent of intra-turn simultaneous
speaking was very low--0.2 % of the total duration of the dialogue; it
occurred 10 times. It should be noted that in 8 cases the interlocutor
signalled comprehension by uttering interjections (for example, m-m). In
2 cases the interlocutors' words were concurrent.

The percent of simultaneous speaking in the end of a turn was also
low--0.3 % of the total duration of a dialogue, or 12 occurrences. In 6
cases, last syllables of words were concurrent, in 1 case--the last
word, in 2 cases the interviewer prompted a suitable word to the
interviewee, and in 3 cases several words were concurrently uttered.

Table 2 shows the mean durations of dialogue components in the
Udmurt, Estonian and Finnish dialogues. Table 3 shows the ratio between
the mean duration of dialogue components in the Finnish and Estonian,
Udmurt and Finnish, and Udmurt and Estonian dialogues.

The mean duration of each of the dialogue components in the Udmurt,
Estonian and Finnish dialogues is shown in Figure 1. Table 3 and Figure
1 show that turns in the Udmurt dialogues were shorter than in the
Finnish and longer than in the Estonian dialogues (a, b). Turns in the
Estonian dialogues were twice as short as in the Finnish dialogues (a,
b).

Udmurts and Finns rarely interrupted the interlocutor in intra-turn
utterances ((s)ab), Estonians spoke simultaneously ((s)ab, (l)ab) longer
than Finns and Udmurts. In the end of a turn, Udmurts had the lowest
occurrences of simultaneous speaking (l)ab).

Pauses in the Udmurt dialogues were 2 times shorter than in the
Estonian and Finnish dialogues ((s)p, ((l)p).

Speech rate measured in the dialogues was 128 words per minute in
the Udmurt dialogues, 158 words per minute in the Estonian and 114 words
per minute in the Finnish ones.

4. Discussion and conclusions

In this article, the characteristics of Udmurt dialogues have been
compared to those of Estonian and Finnish dialogues in order to define
the type of communicative behaviour of Udmurts with respect to the
Estonian and Finnish communicative behaviour and to locate Udmurt
culture in the continuum of high-and low-context cultures.

The findings of analysis are as follows. Turns were found to be the
longest in Finnish dialogues. Turns in Udmurt dialogues were longer than
in Estonian and shorter than in Finnish dialogues, turns in Estonian
being twice as short as in Finnish. Pauses in Finnish and Estonian
dialogues were nearly twice as long as in Udmurt dialogues. The duration
of pauses in Finnish dialogues slightly exceeded that in Estonian
dialogues. The speech rate of the Udmurts was higher than that of the
Finns but lower than that of the Estonians. The interlocutor was
interrupted the most frequently in Estonian dialogues; the Udmurts had
the lowest occurrence of interruptions. Finns rarely interrupted the
interlocutor, too.

Thus, characteristic features of Finnish dialogues are quiet
speech, long turns, long pauses and silent listening to the
interlocutor. Estonian dialogues showed high speech rate, frequent
turn-switching and relatively frequent interruption of the interlocutor.
Udmurt dialogues displayed moderate speech rate and silent listening to
the interlocutor. The aforementioned features can be considered to be
characteristic of the Udmurt, Estonian and Finnish communicative
behaviour.

It has been maintained in the research of inter-cultural
communication that the shorter the pauses in dialogues the higher the
speech rate; the interlocutor is more frequently interrupted. This was
not observed in Udmurt dialogues. Pauses in Udmurt dialogues were very
short; intra-turn pauses were 0.53 sec. long and inter-turn pauses--0.56
sec. The longest intra-turn and inter-turn pauses lasted 2.2 sec. and
1.6 sec., respectively. According to the results of research by Y.
Shigemitsu (2005) and D. C. Clark (1998), pauses in Japanese dialogues
can last as long as 5 sec. and in the dialogues of Indians--even 10 sec.
It should be taken into account, though, that the Udmurt dialogues were
recorded in a direct radio programme, during which long pauses are
broken. It could also be suggested that short pauses in the Udmurt
dialogues are associated with Russian communicative behaviour. In the
Russian dialogue pause implies hesitation, lack of confidence (Turunen
2000).

The results obtained from this study of the communicative behaviour
of Udmurts are similar to the findings of a study by H. Halmari (1993),
in which telephone calls between Finns and Americans were analysed.
Finns rarely interrupted the interlocutor; they uttered interjections to
show understanding and the interlocutors simultaneously uttered only
last syllables of words.

The current study therefore concludes that the Udmurts and the
Finns are silent listeners. However, the Udmurts are silent only during
the interlocutor's turn. As soon as the turn is over they start
speaking and keep speaking relatively long without making long pauses.
Speech rate in the Udmurt dialogue is thus higher than in the Finnish
dialogue. The communicative behaviour of Estonians differs from both the
Udmurt and Finnish type of behaviour.

On the basis of the temporal characteristics of dialogues Udmurt
culture could be referred to the category of high-context cultures
taking into consideration the low occurrence of interruptions in the
Udmurt dialogues. On the other hand, turns in Udmurt dialogues are
shorter than in Finnish dialogues; pauses are shorter than in both
Finnish and Estonian ones. Hence, the assumption that Udmurt culture
could be referred to cultures with higher contextuality than Finnish is
not confirmed.

In this study, the temporal characteristics of Udmurt radio
dialogues were analysed against the background of the results of
research on Finnish and Estonian radio dialogues. To obtain more data on
the communicative behaviour of Udmurts, it is necessary to analyse several types of material, in addition to radio dialogues.

Acknowledgements

This article is based on the author's Master of Arts dissertation "Temporal characteristics in Udmurt dialogues"
(Ryabina 2007). The author expresses gratitude to the supervisor of the
work Hille Pajupuu for useful recommendations. The author also thanks
Niina Aasmae for her help in translating the article into English.

Koeszegi, Sabine, Rudolf Vetschera, and Gregory Kersten (2004)
"National cultural differences in the use and perception of
internet-based NSS: Does high or low context matter?" International
Negotiation 9, 79-109.